Japanese Abbreviated And Contracted Words
Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature of Japanese. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学?) becomes Tōdai (東大?), and "remote control", rimōto kontorōrā (remote controller), becomes rimokon. Names are also contracted in this way. For example Takuya Kimura, in Japanese Kimura Takuya, an entertainer, is referred to as Kimutaku.
The names of some very familiar companies are also contractions. For example, Toshiba is a contraction of "Tokyo Shibaura", and Nissan is a contraction of "Nippon Sangyo".
The contractions may be commonly used, or they may be specific to a particular group of people. For example the "Kokuritsu Kankyō Kenkyūjo" (国立環境研究所?, National Institute for Environmental Sciences of Japan, NIES) is known as Kanken (環研?) by its employees, but this terminology is not familiar to most Japanese.
Read more about Japanese Abbreviated And Contracted Words: Patterns of Contraction, Long Kanji Names, Abbreviations, Created Words, Contractions of Names, Highways and Railway Lines, Single Letters As Abbreviations, Longer Romaji Abbreviations
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—Mae West, U.S. screenwriter, W.C. Fields, and Edward Cline. Cuthbert Twillie (W.C. Fields)
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—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
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—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)